Zuulaman - Chapters 1-8 Summary

"Zuulaman" begins with the ambassador from the eponymous country making trade demands on Saetan, which Saetan finds to be unfair. Meanwhile, Saetan's wife, Hekatah, insists that she has to go home before she has their baby, for she is heavily pregnant. She has been campaigning with Saetan for another loan for her parents, but he argues that last year's loan has not been handled well, and was actually a personal bequest from him, rather than a result of raising the tithes. She insists on going back to her family in Hayll all the same, and he worries that she will use this against him, to hold off naming him as the father until he has done as she wanted (for example, she did this before their last son's birth).

Back in Hayll, Hekatah finds that her family...